


He Has a Thing For...

by 9or10allgood



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 03:17:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9or10allgood/pseuds/9or10allgood
Summary: ...so many things.  This is the short list.





	He Has a Thing For...

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: There was a montage of photographs that showed up on Tumblr and Facebook of my second favorite OTP (the first being my son and daughter-in-law. <3) and it was so, so lovely it actually dragged my long-dormant Muse away from the baccarat tables in Vegas. (But only this once, she said as she vanished in a wave of cigarette smoke and to the sound of slot machines.) Since my only other fan fiction writing has been on a forum that doesn't allow for IRL OTP, I let the pictures inspire me to write about the Metacrisis Doctor and Rose Tyler.

He has a thing for... quiet.

Oh, sure, he can be manic and brash, and his gob can run for hours to the combined frustration and amusement of all those around him - including his Rose, but...

He has a thing for quiet. When it's just the two of them at the end of the day, and supper is over and cleared away, and they've taken their spaces on that ridiculously expensive L-shaped... _thing_ that Jackie surprised them with last Christmas. Not the overstuffed, somewhat tattered sofa that centered itself in front of the fireplace on the TARDIS whenever his Old Girl sensed that he or Rose or both needed some extra cuddle time to decompress. This... _thing_ isn't given to migrating based on the emotional needs of the people around it. Even so, Rose has declared the right corner her own, and she nestles into it at times like these, a glass of wine in hand, and watches him as he goes over schematics for their baby TARDIS or notes about Torchwood artifacts or the latest edition of _Heat_. 

He hunches over the latter, the subject matter of the moment, his own glass of Valpolicella carelessly held in his left hand, while his right reaches back and, of its own accord, finds her feet, pressed together, in woolen socks, because her feet are always cold. Slowly, without thinking, he begins to rub whichever foot is uppermost (in this case, the left one) until it warms and tucks in closer to her body and his hand moves on to the other one, because...

He has a thing for... feet. 

Specifically, _her_ feet. In socks, out of socks. In trainers or strappy sandals or three-inch "fuck me" pumps (the black ones with the row of rhinestones down the back seam are particularly... inspiring, as one terribly embarrassed member of the wait staff at last Christmas' Vitex banquet can attest). In all the years of running and hopping and other modes of bipedal motion they'd indulged in, he'd not really given her feet much consideration until, suddenly, he could and did, and now they are two of his favorite things. So he strokes and kneads with special care, cataloging the delicate but strong bones beneath her socks and skin, and he's just read for the third time the same sentence about Kim leaving Kanye, so maybe he's done with reading for the night. Maybe Rose thinks so, too, because her hand has flowed down his arm and left gooseflesh in its wake, making the very manly hairs on said manly arm stand on end, and his hand moves from her ankle and meets her hand as he tries once more, valiantly, to get through this ridiculous article about two ridiculous people, and he knows it's a lost cause, because...

He has a thing for... hands.

Her hand. His hand... _their_ hands when they meet and their fingers lace together or cup around each other because, either way, the connection that was made in the basement of Hendrix all those years ago, steadies and strengthens and binds them together in ways that are far beyond the customs and mores of countless civilisations across the universe. And, yes, on the ring finger of her left hand, she wears a sapphire of a specific blue, set in platinum, and a band of the same metal with an inscription that only one living being in _this_ universe can translate. He wears a matching band on his finger; the inscription reads " _Forever_." 

He is only now beginning to grasp how immense even a human "forever" can be. He is awed that she's known it all along. Because moments like these, when she pulls him toward her, and his hand reaches around her knee and his head is pillowed on her thigh and all the pain... all the fire and ice... all the blood and anger and revenge of centuries... melt away. He knows an eternity will never be long enough, but he also knows that this moment and the other moments they have are so much more than others - one specific _Other_ \- will ever have, and he's grateful. So grateful.

He presses his head into her side, closes his eyes and imagines he can hear their hearts beating in tandem. He smells the faint honeysuckle of her body wash, feels the warmth of her skin through her jumper. He feels her fingers tracing designs on his shoulder and then she pulls him closer still. He goes, willingly, because...

He has a thing for... Rose.


End file.
